Retired police officers in Edo State have drawn the attention of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to a statement credited to the governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki, that “Nigeria will burn“ if the All Progressives Congress (APC) disturbed the peace of the state again.
In a reaction to the statement yesterday, the Retired Police Officers’Association, said the governor’s threat was capable of instigating violence ahead of the September 21, 2024, governorship poll in the state.
A member of the association and community leader in Benin City, Chief Derrick Asemota, in a statement yesterday, said the governor had “given his boys license to continue to unleash violence in the land, and as such, residents of Benin City and the entire Edo State will no longer sleep with their two eyes closed.”
Following the violence that erupted at the Benin Airport last Thursday, leading to the death of a police inspector, Governor Obaseki who addressed his supporters at a PDP stakeholders‘ meeting allegedly made the threat.
Obaseki, in the 20-second-long abridged video, said: “I won‘t say much, the rest is up to you. We just kept quiet last Thursday, if they try what happened last Thursday again in Edo, Nigeria will burn. Those people who did it, you refused to arrest them, rather you want to come and arrest our boys.”
Asemota, who said his association had written a letter of protest on the issue to President Bola Tinubu and the inspector-general of police, Kayode Egbetokun, said the governor’s public statement was condemnable and undermined the lives of policemen in the service of their fatherland.
He said the governor simply undermined the death of a policeman with his full chest while putting his weight behind his boys, “many of them we know as political thugs.”
“Obaseki’s body language and statement was too partisan for a governor to make in public. Afterall the President also belongs to a party. What if he decides to tow the same line of partisanship.
“Instead of Governor Obaseki to sympathise with the police and the family of the deceased police officer, he is boasting that the entire country will burn if his boys were arrested.
“Who are those boys he is trying to protect? We know them. They are political thugs that are quick to shoot and fight for politicians. We know them more than him because they live among us,” he said.
Speaking further, the octogenarian who called on the governor to retract his statement added, „The governor has policemen protecting him in Government House, and they will not be happy with that kind of public outburst..”
„What the governor has just done will inspire the thugs to continue in their lawlessness.
Since last Thursday shooting in Benin City, everybody is afraid because we do not know what will happen in the next political gathering,“ he said.
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